AMPed Up!

So,the excitement continues with all my plans. Today I received a couple of e-mails and it now looks like I will have at least 6 high school tutors in my AMP program, possibly more! I am very grateful to the teachers who have taken the time out their very, very busy days to help set all of this up. It renews my faith in teachers :) But, not everybody has been so supportive. About a week ago I mentioned the AMP project to a high school staff member who basically made me feel defensive and on the spot. She questioned the worthiness of my plans and wondered why anybody would want to be involved. She told me she was sure high school students would have neither the time nor the interest in tutoring elementary students. Had I stopped there I would have been done for, through, depressed, hand me the razor blades! Interesting, at the end of our conversation (during which I remained focused and calm...well, at least I looked calm and focused), anyway it turns out this woman gave me the name of a high school teacher who has become very excited about the opportunities for both elementary and high school students via this tutoring program and has sent me 4 students. It's all good, right?

So now the task is to contact parents to get their permission and then to further test my top students so I can create an AMP plan that the high school tutors will follow. I am also going to create a training manual for the tutors and we'll have a training session in the next week or so. And I eagerly await some Project M3 materials I have bought. On a 60 day review I am also receiving additional Project M3 materials. It's all coming together and I am thrilled.

Final note...I just spoke with my step son and we are planning on developing an open-source website to share the information about programming for gifted math students, particularly in states, districts, towns, where there is no money! Yep, I am AMPed up!